A selection of my radio, video, multimedia, and podcast work.

Many of these pieces can be licensed on the Public Radio Exchange – visit my page here.

Here and Now

The Grand National Rodeo has brought livestock shows, team roping and bull riding to San Francisco since the 1940s. But most of the spectators don’t know that one man has produced this and nearly every other rodeo in the Golden State for 50 years.

PBS Newshour

Now five years old, the war in Syria has taken an immense emotional and physical toll on those close to the fighting. Nisreen Katbi fled from Syria to Jordan four years ago and now runs a center that helps fellow refugees experiencing physical and psychological trauma. The center provides full-time care, free of charge. Three University of California, Berkeley, journalism students — Hanna Miller, Lacy Jane Roberts and Luisa Conlon — filmed and produced this story in Jordan, which is narrated by Lacy Jane Roberts.

The Atlantic

KQED

For a new series we’re calling “Start the Conversation,” we listen in on pairs of Californians who have very different opinions on issues, but who also want to find common ground. I serve as a producer on the series.

They’re civil dialogues, not debates — and we hope they’re a way to try to bridge some of the big divides between us in this politically charged time.

One of the pieces in this series was a conversation between my Grandfather and I:

If you are driving 395, chances are you’ve come to fish for trout in one of the area’s alpine lakes. Fishing is synonymous with life in the communities that dot the highway, and it’s responsible for luring nearly half of all tourists to Inyo and Mono counties. But there’s almost nothing natural about trout in the Eastern Sierra.

On a bright morning in Alameda in early May, a bluegrass band plays to about 30 people in sun hats and T-shirts. The crowd is here to tour a native plant garden, but the music commands most of the attention. The four-piece band exchanges virtuosic solos, and the crowd responds clapping along.

But one look would tell you this group isn’t an ordinary bluegrass band.

KALW

It all started in Janyce Hill’s home in Salinas, California, in 1981. Hill and her six companions huddled together in a stuffy bedroom, unraveling the mystery of a family turned into rodent-like creatures by a terrible curse.

“It was hot, it was very claustrophobic,” Hill remembers. “And I think it was the second or third session. We had all these snacks and sodas and things. And right when I had given them some piece of really shocking information for their characters, one of the soda bottles blew [its lid] off and just went boom! And [the bottle] exploded and sprayed all over the room and they all shrieked and it was like duh duh duh!”

Back then, Hill spent her days working at an office supply store. But on the weekends, she ruled an alternate universe: one filled with terror and villains and magic. She and her companions were playing Call of Cthulhu, a table-top role-playing game, or RPG.